


The Candidate

by zakhad



Series: Diamond Dogs Album [4]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Gen, Mirror Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-01 10:35:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14518614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/zakhad
Summary: I'll make you a deal, like any other candidateWe'll pretend we're walking home for your future's at stakeMy set is amazing, it even smells like a streetThere's a bar at the end where I can meet you and your friendSomeone scrawled on the walls "I smell the blood of Les Tricoteuses"Who wrote up scandals in other barsI'm having so much fun with the poisonous peopleSpreading rumours and lies and stories they made upSome make you sing and some make you screamOne makes you wish that you'd never been seenBut there's a shop on the corner that's selling papier-mâchéMaking bullet-proof faces; Charlie Manson, Cassius ClayIf you want it, boys, get it here, then





	The Candidate

It's been two months, and I'm not quite sure I have the words to describe this experience.

Being launched from a boring job in which I literally observed life passing me by into a terrorist group, and now.... I am no longer able to label my current status. I am a free agent, for the first time in my life. I was young and not yet employed, when the crash came. The Terran Empire became dominant while I was too young to truly understand why the propaganda wasn't true. Nor did I understand until later the gift my father gave me -- a padd full of books, some of them so boring that I never made it past the first few pages. Until I started to ask questions, and go back to delve into the classics. One of the first things the Empire did was to destroy libraries -- old repositories of dead trees, they crowed, defunct and irrelevant. And then while no one was paying attention, they winnowed the online texts available down to what they wanted us to read. Labeling novels treasonous, if there were anything in the pages that might encourage a different interpretation of the current regime.

The book Chakotay mentioned the day I was 'recruited' was among the books my father had provided. I may have hated my father, but currently, looking back at what I witnessed of him, dealing with his hotheaded son, I see a man who loved his children and did his very best to prepare them for the world he saw approaching. I grieve that he is gone, and wish that I could tell him he was right. Words he never thought I would say, I'm sure.

The Diamond Dogs are dispersing. A series of strikes led by handful of Maquis leaders had turned the tide. Now it was safer to be a revolutionary -- the starship captains were turning on each other, some of them claiming to be Maquis. The Emperor was still nowhere to be found, but too many of the faithful had been executed or taken prisoner. People were rising from the long slumber to walk the streets in protest, where before they hid inside and hurried from one place to another as if afraid brigands would take everything from them.

It's interesting, the prisoners that perception makes of people. These same individuals were likely looting and stealing for survival -- now if I turn on the newsfeeds, I can see them marching shoulder to shoulder. Rallying together against the oppressor in the age old way of humanity. I have history books as well. I have awareness, of a long line of tyrannies followed by the pendulum swing back to socialist or democratic governmental systems. Starting out in good intentions, becoming corrupt, complacent, too caught up in believing the lies carefully fed among truths and half-truths, the impoverished become the resource and the wealthy become wealthier while everyone in between become one or the other. It's a depressing cycle, but one that seems to keep humanity enslaved.

After a month of revolution, we moved into the building in which I had been working. The San Francisco seat of the Empire was an upgrade from the old factory, and inhabiting it was symbolic, Chakotay said. He doesn't like it either. From the set of his mouth, I wonder who has given the order.

I wonder also what's going on with him.... There are other things about him that have changed.

He's taken up with the youngest of the three aliens that were rescued in the raid. She's pretty, and tends to be quiet and observant. I could see what she was doing, the night she danced with the others -- when we transitioned to the new building and chose rooms, they chose one together.

Her mother, Lwaxana, is much less discriminating and overt, fluttering around and flattering people. 

I think, after observing this daily, that both are quite careful in how they present themselves. It suggests they have some sort of agenda. They have told us stories, of how they fled their world, only to keep fleeing from conflict; it is believable that the Empire looked upon telepaths as a resource, and that they were in danger either way if caught. Forced to be enslaved by the Empire, or killed as a "traitor." Now that the Empire is dissolving I would expect them to be as happy as they appear, but unlike so many of the Maquis around them, they are not talking about going home. Not talking about rebuilding or recovering what was taken from them. 

And Chakotay is different, in some way I can't put a finger on. Granted I have not known him for very long, myself. But the quiet man who would speak out when he had something to say has a softer look about him. A little less confidence? Or perhaps it's simply that in the wake of success, he's relaxing, the battle is won and it's time to celebrate.

But I don't think so. Something tells me there is more to it than that. And while Deanna continues to be in all ways soft and smiling and attentive to the man she has chosen, and not at all interested in the rest of us.... I know she is a telepath, and she likely doesn't need to talk to anyone at all. And apparently I am the only one who knows this about her. She hasn't told anyone as far as I can tell. 

Chakotay makes a point to include me in meetings, which I find interesting. Somehow I am looked upon as one of the leadership of this dwindling band of terrorists turning into migrants. Seska boards one of the transports that have started to travel the quadrant again, bound for Cardassia. Some of the Bajorans have also departed, but the one Deanna and Lwaxana were with, Kira, remains. 

So when I was interrupted one afternoon while reading in the luxury of the suite I've appropriated on the ninth floor, it wasn't so surprising that Chakotay had with him a tall dark-skinned bald man in casual dress. "This is Benjamin Sisko. He'd like to talk to you," he said.

"Come in," I said, waving behind me, and Sisko did so, tucking his hands in the pockets of the gray jacket he wore, looking around the interior with interest. I had chosen one of the lesser suites, but it was more opulent than my tastes ran -- there were gleaming silver grace notes everywhere and the decor favored ruby reds and emerald greens. My interest was in the large bookcase at the back of the living room, filled with centuries of literature and history tomes that had drawn me like a moth to flame. 

Sisko didn't give the books any scrutiny, his eyes passing over the spines and bouncing off the print of some mountainscape somewhere in the world, returning to me as I went to the tiny kitchen and offered a beverage. "No, thank you."

I returned, leading the way to the broad doors that opened onto a small patio. There were couches and chairs in a large circle in the lower part of the living area. Chakotay hadn't come in with Sisko, leaving us and closing the door instead, and I found that suspicious. We sat facing each other across the green area rug that covered the floor in the center.

"I'm here to speak to you about the future," Sisko said without preamble.

I laughed, curtly. "I'm not sure you are in the right place."

Sisko's easy smile and relaxed posture were something I'd not seen in a long, long time. A lot of the people in the Maquis cell I supposedly belonged to were still tense -- wired on joy and anticipation these days. "I refer to your future, and the choices you have. One of which I am giving you today."

"Since currency has yet to be decided in the new world order, I'm not sure what you're offering here. Mostly because Chakotay's introduction was incomplete?"

The man chuckled, crossed his legs, and gave his head a shake. "I was the leader of a cell in Europe, until last week. Now I am one of those who are attempting to gather consensus, on the assembly of a new republic."

"So we're back round to that, after the tyranny is over." I had suspected democracy.

Sisko gave a nod. "That would be why I am here. I've been told that you are a scholar of history."

"I have no formal education in it, but if by that Chakotay means I read books, then yes."

"I'm old enough to remember books that apparently no longer exist," Sisko said, no longer smiling. "I search databases and can't find them. Do you do the same?"

"I have. And you are correct that the Empire purged many of them, if that's where you're headed. If you can control information you can control people."

"And so they have. But I'm attempting to convince the revolutionaries to stop and think, and to build a system that evolves from our past failures. And so I need to find resources with which to do so."

I thought about my padd full of books, hidden in the bedroom. I didn't glance at the bookcase. "Do you know about the _tricoteuses_?"

Sisko cocked his head at me. "No, I don't. Never heard of the term. French?"

"In 1789 hungry peasant women stormed Versailles forcing the government to act, to give them bread. The royal family also moved to Paris as a result. The French Revolution was under way by then. They were heroines to the people, and formed societies -- policed the streets and confronted aristocrats on their behavior. The revolutionary government saw this behavior as threatening to their increasingly authoritarian regime, so women were banned from any form of political assembly. Thereafter the women would go to the square, _Place de la Révolution_ , and sit and watch the executions around the guillotine. They would station themselves and knit. The _les tricoteuses de la Guillotine_. The hats they knitted were liberty caps, which came to symbolize the French Revolution."

Sisko took that in, nodding, thinking. Eventually he said, "Liberty can have great cost. It can so easily be lost. Do you see our situation as analogous to the French Revolution, then?"

"I'm not drawing specific parallels. Simply observing that it tends to be that those in power will work toward stability, and stability is a good thing. But stability is also bad, if it stifles the freedom of people beyond maintaining social order, to the point that people rise up and begin to act out of rage and fear. And that which results from operating out of rage and fear rarely resembles rational order. I would hope that principles would be the first thing adopted, prior to setting in place any particular structure."

"I would like you to come with me to Paris," Sisko said then, quietly. His eyes flicked back to the bookcase. "There are a great many who need to hear what you have to say, and if you have any books that would support this...."

And so I became a part of the new world order. I would no longer sit by and watch the executions as they happened.

Somewhere, my father must be smiling.


End file.
